A year has passed since the first session of the General Assembly. It is necessary to look back on the path which has been travelled during this interval, to analyse the work done by the United Nations during this time, to sum up the situation and indicate the possibilities that lie ahead. Every delegation, every country which is a Member of the United Nations is bound to carry out this duty impartially, recognizing its supreme responsibility in this task which demands the utmost clarity, objectivity and respect for the paramount importance of truth.
Looking back, the Soviet delegation must state that during the period under consideration there have been serious defects in the work of the United Nations. These defects must be exposed and specified boldly and consistently. They have consisted chiefly in deviations from the most important principles on which the United Nations is founded and, in a number of cases, even of outright violation of several important decisions of the General Assembly. These defects have arisen, to a considerable extent, from the efforts of such influential States Members of the United Nations as the United States and the United Kingdom to use the Organization for their own narrow group interests, disregarding the importance of strengthening international collaboration based on the principles of the Charter. The policy pursued by individual States of using the Organization in their own selfish, narrowly-conceived interests is gradually undermining its authority, just as it undermined the authority of the late lamented League of Nations.
On the other hand, the unsatisfactory state of affairs in the United Nations, which is unfavourably affecting its authority, arose from the fact that the States referred to have ignored the United Nations by trying to carry out various practical measures outside its framework and bypassing the Organization.
We must pay attention to the serious danger to the United Nations which arises from such a policy, which is incompatible with the principles of the Charter and with the aims and tasks which the United Nations had in view when the Organization was established.
As one of the most serious defects in the functioning of the United Nations, I must mention, in the first place, the unsatisfactory progress made in implementing the General Assembly resolution of 14 December 1946 on the general reduction of armaments.
The resolution unanimously adopted last year by the General Assembly on the general reduction of armaments responds to the vital interests of millions of common people, who, even though the Second World War is over, are still bearing the heavy burden of military expenditures and the excessive hardships connected with the continuing increase in armaments. The Assembly resolution is at the same time an expression of the aspirations and demands of the peace-loving peoples for the establishment of lasting peace and international security. It is an expression of demands dictated by the sufferings they have undergone and the sacrifices they have endured. That was precisely why this resolution was greeted by the peoples of the whole world with deep satisfaction and with hopes for its speedy and total implementation. But these hopes have been disappointed.
When attempts were made in the Security Council and in the Commission for Conventional Armaments to plan practical measures for implementing the resolution of the General Assembly on the general regulation and reduction of armaments, the representatives of the United States and the United Kingdom put forward such conditions as could not but frustrate the execution of the resolution. All the activity of the United States and United Kingdom delegations in the Commission for Conventional Armaments testifies to the fact that these countries do not wish to reduce their armaments; do not wish to disarm and are delaying disarmament, thus sowing alarm among peace-loving peoples. The statement by Mr. Bevin at Southport to the effect that he did not intend to promote disarmament is a convincing reply to queries as to the reasons for the unsatisfactory state of affairs with regard to the implementation of the General Assembly resolution on the reduction of armaments. The same view was expressed by President Truman in a recent speech at Petropolis, where he stressed the fact that the armed forces of the United States would be maintained, but said not a word concerning the obligation assumed by the United Nations under the Assembly resolutions to reduce armed forces.
This attitude of the United States and the United Kingdom on the question of armaments reduction and the failure to achieve positive results in solving the problems referred to in the resolution of 14 December 1946 engenders, as I have said, justifiable alarm and concern for the success of the work we have begun, feelings which are enhanced in particular by the race in armaments, including atomic weapons, and the military preparations of certain militarily and economically powerful States. This undermines faith in the sincerity of statements and speeches made about peace and expressing determination to save future generations from the calamity of war.
The unsatisfactory state of affairs regarding the abolition of atomic and other basic types of mass destruction weapons is particularly alarming to millions of ordinary people. This alarm is all the more justified because atomic weapons are weapons of attack, weapons of aggression. The outcome of eighteen months’ work by the Atomic Energy Commission is that not only has not a single one of the tasks laid upon it by the Assembly resolution of 24 January 1946 been fulfilled, but no progress whatsoever has even been made towards such fulfilment.
For its part, the Soviet Government took a number of steps to co-operate in the satisfactory solution of this problem. In further amplification of its proposal regarding the conclusion of an international agreement for the prohibition of atomic weapons and other basic types of mass destruction weapons, the Soviet Government submitted for the consideration of the Atomic Energy Commission a proposal on the fundamental rules for the international control of atomic energy. However, this proposal was opposed, chiefly by the United States. In the belief that it will retain its monopoly of the atomic weapon, the United States opposes all attempts to destroy its existing stock of atomic bombs and to forbid their manufacture in the future, while at the same time, it is systematically expanding the production of these bombs. The differences of opinion arising from this situation among the members of the Commission impede work and paralyse all efforts to solve successfully the problems before the Commission.
Meanwhile, there is no doubt that, by a more impartial approach to the question, on the part of certain delegations, among them the United States delegation, many divergencies of view, could be removed. For example, we could eliminate the difference of opinion regarding the Soviet delegation’s proposal to destroy existing atomic bomb stocks when the convention on the prohibition of atomic weapons comes into force. As you know, the majority of the Commission agreed in principle that stocks of atomic weapons should be destroyed and their nuclear fuel content used only for peaceful purposes. The United States delegation alone still objects to atomic bomb stocks being destroyed and is thus preventing adoption of a decision approved by the majority of the Commission with regard to the solution of this problem.
The situation which has arisen in connexion with the question of inspection is worthy of notice. Until recently, the United States delegation stressed the special importance of inspection. In the Soviet delegation’s proposals, inspection also is taken account of as a fundamental measure to be adopted following the prohibition of the atomic weapon. However, the United States delegation has now suddenly begun to minimize the importance of inspection and is giving first place to other questions, the transfer of atomic plants to the ownership of an international body, administration, licensing, etc.
Furthermore, the United States delegation refuses to take account of the opinion of authoritative scientists, as expressed for example in the memorandum of the British Council of the Association of Atomic Scientists, which includes such distinguished scientists as Rudolf Peierls, Marcus Oliphant, Moon and others, who are opposed to ownership by an international control agency, of resources for the manufacture of atomic energy. As is known, the British scientists in that memorandum stress the fact that to place the means of production in the full possession — taking this word in its usual sense — of this agency would create difficulties. It would give the atomic energy control agency the power to decide whether a particular country was entitled to build atomic energy plants, and to prevent the energy produced by such plants being used or to decide on what conditions the energy was to be supplied.
The British scientists, in criticizing the provision supported by the United States delegation ever since Mr. Baruch began work, rightly say: “Such a restriction would make it possible to interfere in the economic life of each country to an extent not necessary for preventing the use of atomic energy for destructive purposes.” These are the views of men of science, who regard this problem from the point of view of scientific progress, which is incompatible with the unrestricted control by any centralized international organ over scientific research for peaceful purposes, directed towards discovering and increasing power resources for the good of mankind as a whole.
That is why the British Atomic Scientists’ memorandum favours a plan which would safeguard against an accumulation of dangerous materials without the authorization of the atomic energy control organs. At the same time it would make it possible for all countries to take the initiative in the construction of atomic energy plants inside their territories to augment their other power resources.
In the interests of strengthening universal peace, the Soviet Union suggested the conclusion of a convention prohibiting the use of atomic weapons in any circumstances. The Soviet Union’s suggestion was widely welcomed and supported in all countries. “Such a convention,” says the memorandum of the British Association of Scientific Workers, “appears to us to be very desirable, and it is difficult to justify the reluctance of the United Kingdom and the United States to agree to it.” The British scientists, in appraising the USSR demand to destroy stocks of completed atomic weapons and to stop their production, state that such a demand seems to them to be eminently reasonable.
The Soviet Union stands for strict international control of atomic energy plants, but this control should not be transformed into interference in those branches of national industry or in those matters which have no connexion with atomic energy. Here again the British atomic scientists are right when, in their memorandum published on 23 January last, they express the desire “that the right of inspection should be limited as far as possible and should not take the form of excessive curiosity with regard to legitimate industry and other forms of activity.”
In their memorandum published in August of this year, the British scientists once again indicate the necessity for restricting within specific limits the right of inspection, which should not serve the ends of organized economic and military intelligence. The memorandum states: “The United States and other supporters of the Baruch Plan should be encouraged to formulate safeguards to ensure that any inspection scheme should not develop into an elaborate system of espionage.”
Basing itself on the above principles for organizing international control which, I repeat, should be real, strong and effective, the Soviet delegation considers it essential to keep inspection agencies within certain limits, to restrict their powers to the actual task of atomic energy control and to' exclude the possibility of control agencies being used to pry arbitrarily into any branch of a country’s national economy quite regardless of the fact that such interference might undermine and shatter the national economy of that country.
The United States delegation and some other delegations supporting it are especially urging that all factories producing atomic materials in dangerous quantities be owned and managed by an international control agency with proprietary rights which would act in accordance with the interests of the majority of the agency’s members, who can hardly be relied upon to be kindly disposed towards the Soviet Union. And that is precisely the position which the delegations associated with the United States delegation and acting under its guidance are striving to reach. The British scientists’ memorandum already quoted does not conceal the fact that the United States plan for the organization of atomic energy control provides for measures which “may be interpreted as maintaining the supremacy of the United States in the field of atomic energy.”
The Soviet delegation has objected to such a provision and will continue to object, since its aim is not the supremacy of a single country in the international control agency, but the equality of all the members of this agency in all its activities.
In this connexion it should also be pointed out that the United States representatives on the Atomic Energy Commission stubbornly object to the simultaneous establishment of control over atomic production in all its stages, from the extraction of the raw material to the delivery of the finished products.
The United States representatives propose to postpone for an indefinite period the establishment of control over the final and most dangerous stages of atomic production, for which the United States feels it has a monopoly at present. At the same time they insist on the immediate introduction of control over the first stage, the extraction of the raw material. It is quite clear that the United States position cannot be interpreted otherwise than as a method designed to avoid the extension of control to the United States, while at the same time all other countries would be immediately subject to international control.
That is the position as regards atomic energy. It is obviously impossible in such a situation to reckon on success when certain delegations make no effort to collaborate in achieving the aims set forth in the Assembly resolution of 14 December last. Such a situation is intolerable. We cannot accept the fact that the threat to use atomic energy for mass destruction and the extermination of peaceful populations has still not been removed. The conscience of peoples cannot tolerate a situation where, notwithstanding the appeal of the United Nations to put an end to the atomic weapon and other basic types of weapons for the mass destruction of human life, the production of such weapons is not only continuing but is becoming even more widespread.
The so-called Truman Doctrine and the Marshall Plan are particularly glaring examples of the manner in which the principles of the United Nations are violated, of the way in which the Organization is ignored.
As the experience of the past few months has shown, the proclamation of this doctrine meant that the United States Government has moved towards a direct renunciation of the principles of international collaboration and concerted action by the great Powers, and towards attempts to impose its will on other independent States, while at the same time obviously using the economic resources distributed as relief to individual needy nations as an instrument of political pressure. This is clearly proved by the measures taken by the United States Government with regard to Greece and Turkey which ignore and by-pass the United Nations as well as by the measures proposed under the so-called Marshall Plan in Europe. This policy conflicts sharply with the principle expressed by the General Assembly in its resolution of 11 December 1946, which declares that relief supplies to other countries “should ... at no time be used as a political weapon.”
As is now clear, the Marshall Plan constitutes in essence merely a variant of the Truman Doctrine adapted to the conditions of post-war Europe. In bringing forward this plan, the United States Government apparently counted on the cooperation of the Governments of the United Kingdom and France to confront the European countries in need of relief with the necessity of renouncing their inalienable right to dispose of their economic resources and to plan their national economy in their own way. The United States also counted on making all these countries directly dependent on the interests of American monopolies, which are striving to avert the approaching depression by an accelerated export of commodities and capital to Europe.
It is common knowledge that, in spite of the hardships and difficulties of post-war economic rehabilitation, not all the countries of Europe have agreed to such an infringement of their sovereignty, such interference in their internal affairs, and those countries which took part in the notorious negotiations in Paris on this problem are gradually beginning to understand the danger of their situation and are realizing more and more the true nature of these proposals for relief. It is becoming more and more evident to everyone that the implementation of the Marshall Plan will mean placing European countries under the economic and political control of the United States and direct interference by the latter in the internal affairs of those countries.
Moreover, this Plan is an attempt to split Europe into two camps and, with the help of the United Kingdom and France, to complete the formation of a bloc of several European countries hostile to the interests of the democratic countries of Eastern Europe, and most particularly to the interests of the Soviet Union.
An important feature of this Plan is the attempt to confront the countries of Eastern Europe with a bloc of Western European States including Western Germany. The intention is to make use of Western Germany and German heavy industry (the Ruhr) as one of the most important economic bases for American expansion in Europe, in disregard of the national interests of the countries which suffered from German aggression.
I need only recall these facts to show the utter incompatibility of this policy of the United States, and of the British and French Governments which support it, with the fundamental principles of the United Nations.
It is also impossible to regard as normal, in the mutual relations between Members of the United Nations, a situation in which foreign armed forces continue to be stationed on the territory of Member States of the United Nations and to act as a means of political interference in the internal affairs of those States. This situation creates relations of inequality and dependence between States, which contravene the Charter of the United Nations. British troops are still in Egypt against the will of that country; in Greece in disregard of that country’s constitution; in Transjordan which has applied for membership in the United Nations. United States troops are still in China, a condition which is anything but conducive to the establishment there of internal peace and tranquility. Foreign troops should not be in non-enemy territories unless their presence there is required for the protection of communications with former enemy territories while the latter remain under occupation. The strengthening of universal peace and mutual confidence between countries demands a rapid and effective solution of the problem of evacuating from the territories of non-enemy States foreign troops which are not protecting communications with former enemy countries.
The fact that certain members of the Organization have failed to implement important decisions of the Assembly is also noteworthy: in the Spanish question there is Argentina; in the questions of discrimination against Indians in South Africa, and the establishment of trusteeship over the former mandated Territory of South West Africa, there is the Union of South Africa.
The General Assembly cannot ignore such actions by certain Members of the Organization which, frustrate the achievement of the purposes of these resolutions and which diminish the authority of the United Nations.
In this connexion, I must refer to the events taking place in Indonesia. These events can only be called an act of aggression against the Indonesian people by a Member State of the United Nations. The unprovoked military attack by the Netherlands on the Indonesian Republic has aroused the righteous indignation of all decent people. Yet has the United Nations given proper protection to the Indonesian people? We all know that this has not been done. As a result of the Security Council’s consideration of the Indonesian question, certain States made considerable efforts to minimize the importance of what was happening in Indonesia and to force upon the Security Council a resolution on this question which cannot possibly be considered as sufficient protection of the legitimate interests of the Indonesian Republic, the victim of aggression. Obviously, such decisions cannot but undermine the authority of the United Nations, which is surely the very body called upon to ensure the maintenance of peace amongst the peoples.
In this connexion, also it is to be noted that certain influential Powers, while failing to show due interest in clearing up the unsatisfactory state of affairs as regards a settlement of the Spanish question and the other questions I have mentioned, are particularly interested in the Iranian question, which is still being "retained on the Security Council’s agenda eighteen months after it was completely settled and even after Iran itself had asked that it be removed from the Council’s agenda. We must also note the stubborn insistence of the representatives of the United States and the United Kingdom, at all costs and against all reason, to retain the Iranian problem on the Security Council’s agenda for certain apparently specific motives. The stubbornness of the United States and United Kingdom members of the Council on this question is the more noteworthy in that it could not be shaken even by the Secretary-General’s fully justified opinion that there was no reason for the Council to deal with the so-called Iranian problem.
With reference to the Trusteeship Council, the USSR delegation also considers it essential to point out the following. At the meeting of the General Assembly on 13 December 1946, the USSR delegation criticized the Trusteeship Agreements for former mandated territories submitted for the Assembly’s ratification, because both the preparation of these agreements and certain articles contained in them were not in conformity with the requirements laid down in the Charter of the United Nations. The fact that these agreements with their defects formed the basis for the organization of the Trusteeship Council naturally could not fail to influence the attitude of the USSR delegation towards the election of members to the Council which is to be set up on the basis of these agreements. The USSR delegation still holds the view it expressed in this connexion at the Assembly meeting of 13 December 1946.
The delegation of the USSR, which is a permanent member of the Trusteeship Council, would like to hope that these violations of the Charter committed in negotiating the Trusteeship Agreements will be remedied, as this would undoubtedly facilitate the Trusteeship Council’s performance of its tasks.
It is self-evident that this would be in the interests both of the United Nations as a whole and of the populations of the Trust Territories.
The unsatisfactory condition of the work of the United Nations is not accidental; it is the result of the attitude adopted towards the Organization by several of its Members and, particularly^ by the United States of America and the United Kingdom. Such an attitude neither promotes the strengthening of the Organization, nor serves the interests of international co-operation. On the contrary, it tends to weaken and undermine the United Nations and this undoubtedly fits in with the plans and intentions of reactionary circles in the aforementioned countries under whose influence this policy is being pursued.
The policy of the USSR with regard to the United Nations calls for strengthening that body, extending and reinforcing international co-operation, unfaltering and consistent observance of the Charter and the implementation of its principles.
The United Nations can be strengthened only by respecting the political and economic independence of States, and the sovereign equality of peoples and by the consistent and absolute observance of one of the most important principles of the United Nations: the principle of great Power agreement and unanimity in settling the highly important problems of the maintenance of international peace and security. This is in full conformity with the special responsibilities of these Powers for the maintenance of universal peace, and guarantees the protection of the interests of all States, Members of the United Nations, great and small.
The Soviet Union considers itself bound to oppose resolutely any attempts to weaken this principle, under whatever pretexts they may be masked.
I have a few more words to say on the statement made by the Secretary of State of the United States of America, General Marshall.
This statement dealt with questions which have often been discussed. Most of them are included in the Assembly’s agenda as separate items and I shall therefore have an opportunity of expressing my views in the right order and at the right time.
New problems were also raised in General Marshall’s statement. The USSR delegation feels obliged to deal with some of these questions, for instance, the question of the threat to the independence and territorial integrity of Greece. Leaving in abeyance a full discussion of this question until the Assembly deals with the item in its proper order on the agenda, the USSR delegation nevertheless feels it should merely point out that there were absolutely no grounds for raising this question at all.
The charges brought by the United States delegation against Yugoslavia, Bulgaria and Albania are entirely arbitrary and without proof. They go much further than the conclusions of the majority of the Commission,1 which were not supported by nearly half the members of that Commission, and which do not withstand criticism even if the most cursory examination is made of the data on which these conclusions are based. It will not be hard to prove that this majority report on the so-called Greek question is full of contradictions and farfetched misinterpretations which deprive the conclusions of the majority of any significance whatsoever.
The Korean question. After describing the situation, quite arbitrarily and incorrectly, as though the ineffectiveness of the work of the USSR-United States Commission on Korea should be attributed to the USSR element, Mr. Marshall submitted a proposal which is a direct violation of the Moscow Agreement on Korea concluded by the three Foreign Ministers in December 1945. In this Agreement the United States and the USSR undertook jointly to prepare a solution of the problem of unifying Korea into an independent democratic State. Mr. Marshall’s new proposal is a violation of the obligations undertaken by the United States and is therefore unjustified and unacceptable. Instead of taking steps, in accordance with the Moscow Agreement on Korea, to work out the prescribed arrangements and to submit them for the joint consideration of the four Governments — the United States, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, the United Kingdom and China — the United States Government prefers to violate its undertakings and attempt to cover up its unilateral and entirely unjustified action with the authority of the General Assembly. The USSR Government cannot agree to such a violation of the Agreement on Korea and will insist on the rejection of Mr. Marshall’s proposal as it contravenes the obligations undertaken under the Three Power Agreement on Korea.
For “the purpose of devoting constant attention to the Assembly’s work” and settling questions of a “permanent character,” Mr. Marshall proposes to set up a permanent committee of the Assembly to be known as the “Interim Committee on Peace and Security”. Although reservations were made in the United States proposal that this committee would not deal with questions which are the province primarily of the Security Council and special commissions, there can be no doubt that the attempt to set up an Interim Committee is nothing less than an ill-concealed attempt to replace and by-pass the Security Council. This Committee’s functions — the consideration of “situations and disputes endangering friendly relations” — are none other than the functions of the Security Council as laid down particularly in Article 34 of the Charter. By virtue of that circumstance, these functions cannot be transferred to any institution, however it may be called, without committing a direct and blatant breach of the United Nations Charter with which, naturally, the USSR delegation cannot possibly agree and against which it will resolutely protest.
I repeat that, if the above-mentioned new proposals as well as old proposals in a new guise are submitted by the United States delegation for the General Assembly’s consideration, the USSR delegation reserves the right to analyse these proposals in greater detail and at greater length and, when they are discussed in substance, to secure their rejection as contravening the principles, aims and objects of the United Nations and as proposals which, if adopted, would merely undermine the very foundations of the United Nations.
The USSR delegation considers it essential to raise in the General Assembly the extremely important question of measures against the ever- increasing propaganda for a new war, in certain countries.
More than two years have elapsed since the United Nations Charter was signed in San Francisco and subsequently ratified by fifty-two States, thus inaugurating the work of a new international association having as its task, to guarantee the peace and security of nations, to develop and strengthen international co-operation for the economic and the social progress of peoples. The establishment of the United Nations goes back to the period when the chief enemy of democratic countries, Hitlerite Germany, was destroyed and the day of the complete defeat of Japan was near. The attempts of these enemies of mankind to establish world domination on a firm basis failed completely as a result of the historic victory of the democratic countries led by the Anglo-Soviet-American coalition. The two traditional hotbeds of war were destroyed. We want to be sure that they are destroyed forever, that the task set by the Allies of completely disarming Germany and Japan will be completed and that these countries will never again threaten freedom-loving peoples with war and aggression. We want to be certain that the stern lesson given to the aggressor States in the recent Second World War shall not pass without trace and that the fate of the severely punished aggressors in the past war shall serve as a terrible warning to those who, in neglect of the obligations which they have undertaken to develop friendly relations between peoples and strengthen peace and security throughout the world, are secretly and openly preparing for another war. Fanned by the efforts of the militarist and expansionist circles of certain countries, especially of the United States, the war psychosis is gradually spreading and is assuming an ever more threatening character.
For a long time past there has been waged in the Press, especially the American Press and the Press of countries like Turkey, which follow obediently in the wake of the United States, a furious campaign designed to prepare world public opinion for a new war. Every method of psychological effect is brought into play: newspapers, magazines, radio and cinema.
This propaganda for a new war is conducted under a great variety of flags and pretexts; but however different the banner or pretext the essence of the propaganda remains the same: to justify a mad race for armaments, including atomic weapons, in the United States; to justify the boundless ambitions of influential circles in the United States to realize their expansionist schemes, which centre around the insane idea of world hegemony.
. From the pages of the American Press this propaganda for a new war, together with pleas for faster and better preparations for war, flows unabated. A whole series of newspapers and magazines, particularly American, cry day after day in every possible key about a new .war and systematically pursue this baneful psychological campaign to mould the public opinion of their countries. The warmongers carry on their propaganda under the screen of a clamour for the strengthening of national defence and the necessity for combating the danger of war which, they claim, threatens them from other countries. In every way and by every means the propagandists and warmongers try to frighten politically ill-informed people with fairy tales and malicious inventions about an attack on America which is allegedly being prepared by the Soviet Union. Of course, they know very well that they are lying, that the Soviet Union is not threatening, to attack any country, that the Soviet Union is devoting its energies to rehabilitating the regions ravaged and devastated by war, to the restoration and further development of its national economy.
The propagandists and warmongers operating in the United States, as well as in England, Turkey, Greece and certain other countries, know very well that in the Soviet Union all our people — workers, peasants, and intellectuals — unanimously condemn all attempts to foment a new war. Such a thing would, indeed, be impossible in the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union is busy on peaceful construction, immersed in the peaceful work of which it has such an abundance: work to restore the regions devastated by war, to strengthen and develop the Soviet national economy, which suffered from the grievous effects of the war forced on the Soviet Union by the Hitlerite bandits. In the Soviet Union, a land of socialist democracy, where a new life is being peacefully built up, there is not, and cannot be, anything even remotely reminiscent of what is going on in some countries which regard themselves as democratic and progressive and yet tolerate such a disgraceful thing as war propaganda, as poisoning the minds of the public with the venom of hate for mankind and enmity towards other people.
If anybody in the Soviet Union dared express in statements, in however small a degree, such a criminal thirst for further human holocausts, such statements would be decisively rejected and publicly condemned as criminal and socially dangerous.
Yet these gentlemen, whose trade is to bait the Soviet Union and the other democratic countries of Eastern Europe, and to bait the consistent democrats and opponents of another war in other countries, are not at a loss for lying and slanderous inventions, manufactured by these inciters and warmongers and spread all over the world through countless channels of information.
They constantly preach the inevitability and even the need for a new war, using as a cover the alleged necessity to counteract the aggressive policy of the Soviet Union and the other countries of Eastern Europe. This indeed is laying the fault at the wrong man’s door! Truly, as a Russian proverb says, “They wield the whip themselves and do their own howling”.
Preparations for a new war are being carried on literally before the eyes of the whole world; in fact, the propagandists and warmongers do not even attempt to conceal it. They openly threaten peaceful countries with war, although they make every attempt to lay on them the responsibility for igniting a new conflagration of war.
The preparation for a new war, as a number of signs show, has emerged from the stage of mere propaganda and psychological manipulation; from the stage of a war of nerves. Many facts show that in certain States — and this applies especially to the United States — a war psychosis is being encouraged by the actual adoption of practical measures of a strategic nature, together with such organizational and technical measures as the construction and organization of new military bases, the rearrangement of armed forces in accordance with plans for future military operations, the expansion of the output of new armaments, and feverish work on the improvement of weapons.
At the same time military blocs are being formed; military agreements for so-called mutual defence are being concluded; steps are being taken for the standardization of armaments, and plans for a new war are being elaborated in general staff offices. With some justification, the well-known American radio commentator Leon Pearson, in a recent statement, had to admit that, “American officers are being slowly and carefully prepared for the next world war in which the enemy will be Russia.”
Such is the work of the instigators and propagandists of a new war. For fear of a new depression, they provoke a new war, and in this way they hope to divert the imminent threat of a slump and avoid the loss of their privileges,
The promoters of a new war cherish the insane plan of establishing their domination, by armed force, over those countries which are fighting for their independence and which deny the right of other Powers to intervene in their internal affairs, and they try to dictate to them their own canons of domestic and foreign policy.
In fanning the flames of a new war and inciting their adherents to fight against certain States, the incendiaries of the new conflagration hope to achieve their ends within the limits of a local war. They are evidently unmindful of the experience of past wars, which shows that in these days every new war inevitably develops into a new world war. They forget that a new world war, with all the senseless devastation which it will bring upon many and many a town, with its annihilation of millions of people and of the immense material wealth accumulated by human labour, would descend upon mankind like a terrible scourge and would set it back many decades.
In this propaganda for a new war the most active role has been assumed by representatives of American capitalist monopolies, representatives of the biggest firms and of leading branches of American industry and banking and stock exchange groups. These are the groups which found the Second World War — as, in its day, they also found the first — an occasion for earning huge profits and accumulating great fortunes.
If we compare the five pre-war years (from 1935 to 1939 inclusive) with the five years of the Second World War (from 1940 to 1944 inclusive), it will be found that the profits of all United States corporations for the five pre-war years amounted, after deduction of taxes, to $15,300 million and for the five years of the Second World War the profits of these corporations, after payment of taxes, amounted to $42,300 million. According to the Department of Commerce figures, the net profit of these corporations for the six years of the war (from 1940 to 1945 inclusive) amounted to $52,000 million. These profits were earned from human blood, devastated towns, millions of widows and orphans mourning their lost breadwinners.
The magazine Economic Review (published by the Congress of Industrial Organizations) cited in its No. 11 of 1946 some interesting figures of the increased profits earned, after deduction of taxes, by fifty companies in the years 1945 and 1946. These figures show that certain monopoly concerns made exorbitant war profits of 200 to 300 per cent, or even more. In some cases the profits were as high as 500 or nearly 800 per cent, (for example, the Atlantic Sugar Refining Company).
According to this magazine, these profits were four times greater than the average profits for the period 1936 to 1939. Trade profits, as John Steelman, Director of the Board of Economic Stabilization, has stated, reached the highest point in their whole history in October 1946.
Thus, war is not really so distasteful to those social groups in certain countries which are clever enough to exploit the miseries of war for profit. It is no mere accident, therefore, that in his book, World Monopoly and Peace, in which he mentions “the disequilibrium” and “radical economic disintegration” observable in capitalist countries, James Allen quotes, from the report of a Government organization which carries out research on this question, the judgment upon which he bases his conclusion that “only under war conditions can the present economic system secure approximately full employment.”
Such a candid admission hardly calls for comment. It speaks eloquently enough for itself.
It should be noted that the capitalist monopolies, which secured for themselves decisive influence during the war, have retained that influence even since the war ended, making skilful use for this purpose of the thousands of millions of Government subsidies and grants and the protection which they invariably received and are still receiving from various Government bodies and institutions. They have been helped in this by the close association of the monopoly concerns with Senators and members of the Government, who themselves are very often either directors or partners in these monopolies.
Such a situation has left its mark on the industrial, scientific and technical activities concentrated in the laboratories of various big firms, joint stock companies, trusts and concerns.
This is also true of research in the field of atomic energy. Such capitalist monopolies as the Du Pont Chemical Trust, the Monsanto Chemical Company, the Westinghouse Corporation, the General Electric Company, the Standard Oil Company and others which hold complete sway in this field are among those most closely associated with work in the field of utilization of atomic energy. Before the war they used to maintain the closest cartel connexion with the German trusts, and many cartel agreements provided that exchange of information would have to be renewed after the war.
All these facts sufficiently explain the exceptional interest taken by various capitalist monopolies in the production of atomic weapons. They explain the stubborn resistance shown to the reasonable demands made to prohibit the production of atomic weapons and to destroy stocks of atomic bands, in the production of which huge financial resources have been invested.
The quest of the capitalist monopolies for profits, the efforts made to preserve and expand at all costs those branches of war industry which enable them to earn large profits, cannot but influence the direction of foreign policy and so strengthen the military, expansionist and aggressive tendencies of this policy to satisfy the evergrowing appetites of the influential monopolist circles.
Such is the soil in which propaganda for another war thrives in the United States. The exponents of this propaganda are not only high- ranking representatives of influential American industrial and military circles, influential organs of the Press and highly placed politicians, but also official representatives of the United States Government. It is no mere accident that the most vehement instigators of a new war are persons who are closely connected with trade, industrial or financial trusts, concerns and monopolies.
There is no need to mention many of them. It is enough to refer to a few — not of course, to them as individuals, to their personal views or their personal qualities etc. — but mainly to the social groups and institutions and the industrial, technical and educational societies, the views and interests of which these people represent.
1. When the estimates proposed for the “aid” to be given to the Greek and Turkish Governments were being discussed in the House of Representatives on 7 May, Mr. William Dorn, a member of the House of Representatives, made the cynical statement, worthy of a hardened warmonger, that “400 million dollars would not stop the Soviet Union. That could only be done by a big air force and by bombing potential industrial centres in the USSR, the industrial areas in the Urals and other vital zones.” This was said in the United States House of Representatives by a man who regards himself as a representative of the American people.
2. The President of the National Industrial Conference Board, Mr. Virgil Jordan, made slanderous references to the Soviet Union. In a moment of expansiveness Mr. Jordan said that the United States “must produce lots of atomic bombs and drop them, whether or not there were reasons to believe that a particular country was producing armaments.”
3. Mr. G. H. Earle, the former United States Minister to Bulgaria, made the provocative statement in the House of Representatives Committee on the Investigation of un-American Activities that the United States should use atomic bombs immediately against any country which refused to agree with the United States plan for an inspection system. Using a scare story about Soviet “jet-propelled bombs fired from submarines,” Mr. Earle urged that “the most appalling types of weapons should be prepared in secrecy” and that the Russians should be told that “as soon as the first atomic bomb was dropped on us (the United States), we would destroy every village in Russia.”
4. Mr. C. A. Eaton, Chairman of the House of Representatives Committee on Foreign Affairs, published an article in the American Magazine in which he stated: “We can still blockade Russia psychologically. If we do not succeed, we must smash her by armed force.”
Where did this statement appear? It appeared in the American Magazine. Who made it? It was made by the Chairman of the Committee on Foreign Affairs. A Chairman like that will have a fine foreign policy!
5. Senator B. McMahon, former Chairman of the Joint Congressional Committee on Atomic Energy, said in Congress that the United States “should be the first to drop atomic bombs, if an atomic war could not be avoided”.
In another of his speeches he said that, if it was impossible to agree on international control of atomic energy, the United States had four possibilities: first, to accumulate vast. supplies of atomic bombs; secondly, to begin war immediately; thirdly, to establish an international control body without the Soviet Union, and fourthly, to fix a date for the coming into force of international control and to declare any country that refused to accept it guilty of “aggression”.
6. Mr. C. W. Brooks, Senator from Illinois, had no scruples in telling the Senate cynically on 12 March last that, if the United States had followed the advice given before the war by the Republican Party and “had allowed the Germans to destroy Russia, there would be no need for the present Truman Doctrine.” He added that the United States had helped the Soviet Union during the war, but might now be forced to wage war on the Soviet Union.
7. General J. R. Deane, formerly head of the United States Military Mission to the USSR, stated in his book that the United States’ military programme should be framed in such a way as to cope with the special situation which a war with Russia might involve.
8. Mr. P. B. Harwood, Vice-President of the industrial firm, Cutler-Hammer, Inc., declared, according to the newspaper, Journal-American, that the atomic bomb is a poor weapon because it destroys an excessive amount of property instead of slaughtering only people. The same Mr. Harwood made the following cynical statement in so many words at a meeting of the American Professional Institute at Milwaukee: “Although this may sound heartless, the type of weapon which we should possess, if we have to wage a war, is a weapon which will kill people only. In the next war such a weapon will do away with the need for rehabilitating a country or property on such a large and expensive scale.”
Finally, I must mention the name of Mr. John Foster Dulles, who is so well known to everyone. In his speech on 10 February last at Chicago, Mr. Dulles called for a tough foreign policy towards the Soviet Union, claiming that if the United States refused to take this course and continued to reckon on the possibility of reaching some compromise with the Soviet Union, war would be inevitable. In this speech Mr. Dulles boasted that no country since the fall of the Roman Empire had possessed such a vast superiority in material power as the United States and he called on the United States to use this power in order to achieve its aims. Not bad advice, certainly, from a member of the United States delegation to the United Nations!
The meaning of these, statements is clear. In some cases it is open, in others poorly disguised instigation to war against the USSR. It is a provocative attempt to divert attention from the real warmongers and to cloak their warmongering activities by demagogic calumnies about a worldwide social revolution and other ravings designed for the credulity of simpletons.
Those are the instigators of a new war from the ranks of United States politicians, men who have no scruples, not only in making deliberately slanderous attacks on the Soviet Union and fomenting hatred against the USSR, but who systematically urge the inevitability and necessity of a new war, who systematically play the part of propagandists and fomenters of a new war.
Their statements re-echo the ready-made utterances of such inveterate reactionaries as the notorious American Legion at whose recent convention several members, drunk with war hysteria, shouted that “no one should make the mistake of imagining that America would not draw the sword if circumstances required it”. War psychosis, war hysteria, serves its purpose by spreading its destructive influence.
The reactionary politicians engaged in warmongering are emulated by numerous organs of the American reactionary Press in the hands of such newspaper magnates as Morgan, Rockefeller, Ford, Hearst, McCormick and others. It is well known that Morgan controls the magazines Time, Life, and Fortune, published by the well-known publishing house, Time, Inc., in which, the largest shareholder, incidentally, is the firm of Brown Brothers, Harriman & Co.
It is well known that the biggest capitalists in the United States own or control important organs of the Press, magazines, newspapers, newsletters and have their own publishing houses which flood the book market with their literature. This entire Press, at the behest of its masters, is agitating fiercely in favour of launching a new war, is disseminating all manner of insinuations and falsehoods appropriately devised to arouse hatred of the Soviet Union and the other new democratic eastern European nations. In the pages of these newspapers and magazines provocative appeals are made day after day for attacks on other countries, which, they say, are threatening the security of the United States, although these Press organs, as well as their owners, know very well that no one proposes to attack the United States and that the United States is not in the least threatened.
For example, it should be noted that such Press organs as the New York Herald Tribune, and several other similar organs, principally of the Hearst Press, systematically reproduce all kinds of provocative articles, and drum into the minds of their readers the necessity “of military action if Europe collapses or if it falls under the control of the Soviet Union.” There are quite a number of such statements. The most important thing to note, however, is not that these statements are made, but that they meet with no real rebuttal, which merely encourages these papers to still further provocation.
This Press is entirely in the hands of the owners of the various newspaper concerns and carries out their orders, presenting their own literary efforts as expressing public opinion, and making it appear that they are communicating the tendencies and hopes of the American people. It can be confidently asserted, however, that the American people, like the people of other democratic countries, are opposed to a new war for the scars of the last war have not yet healed. In most cases, however, the people have no opportunity of expressing in books, magazines, or newspapers with a circulation in millions their needs and their aspirations. This, of course, facilitates the propaganda work of the fomenters of a new war who exploit their privileged position to the detriment of the interests of the peace-loving nations.
A few words could be added to the foregoing regarding the propaganda for a new war conducted by scientific institutions and universities. In this connexion, I should mention the collection entitled, The Absolute Weapon, recently published by Yale University. In this work a group of scientists, speaking of the atomic weapon and control of the use of atomic energy, could think of nothing better than to draw the conclusion that “the most effective way of preventing war is to be able to start an atomic war literally in a flash.”
Under the guise of scientific objectivity this book sets forth the different forms of atomic warfare. It mentions also that if the United States Air Force “could use northern Canadian bases, cities in the Soviet Union would be within considerably closer range” and in tins way, “it would be possible, using these bases, to destroy most of the big cities of any other Power”.
What other Power? The USSR!
That is the dream that the gentlemen from Yale describe in the book The Absolute Weapon.
In this book devoted to the so-called absolute weapon (the atomic bomb) a group of American authors engages in suspicious speculations as to whether, “if we” (that is, the Americans) “fail to strike the first blow and thereby remove the threat before it is carried into effect, that is, do something which our Constitution deliberately forbids us to do, we are doomed to perish as a result of atomic attack . . .”
These gentlemen, it appears, are prepared to sacrifice even their own Constitution, if only they can be the first to attack, the first to drop an atomic bomb, though no one in the world has any intention at all of dropping atomic bombs on America. That there is no such intention is well known to the authors of this false and libellous book. It suits them, however, to lie and slander, and hireling pen-pushers disseminate these falsehoods all over the world in millions of copies because it is so commanded by the monopolies which control all the means of information.
Under the guise of scientific reflections of every nature, this book speaks of the danger of “unilateral actions by a specific great Power”, and says that, if in the future “unilateral actions” are taken, it is much more likely to expect them from the Soviet Union. The provocative inference drawn from this reflection is “the serious danger for the United States, that unless we (the United States) warn it properly, the Soviet Union may one fine day start a war against us.”
The foregoing extracts from this book are sufficient to show how varied are the forms and methods assumed by the propaganda being spread in the United States for a new war, aimed primarily at the Soviet Union.
How far this new war propaganda has gone, with the accompanying demands made for the manufacture of the most lethal forms of weapons, can be seen from a report by Mr. Merck published in the Chemical and Engineering News, where, in the section entitled “Science and Civilization”, the lethal advantages of bacteriological warfare are openly advocated. An article in the publication Army Ordnance also takes the same line in regard to a new toxin, research into which, according to this publication, has cost $50 millions. As the author says, however, this expenditure “is fully justified” because one ounce of this toxin is sufficient to kill 180 million people.
When one reads all this so-called “scientific” literature, one feels the satanic energy expended by the warmongers and war propagandists to create an atmosphere in which the human conscience is stupefied by war hysteria.
An article by the English journalist, Vernon Bartlett, published in the London newspaper, News Chronicle, early last August gives some idea of the impression made on people by this type of propaganda, which is disseminated by reactionaries all over the world and which is particularly strong in United States spheres of influence. The article includes these noteworthy lines: “From the moment a person arriving in the zone controlled by General MacArthur reaches Okinawa on his way to Japan, he is struck by the tone of the references in the American newspapers to the Soviet Union. The United States soldier can certainly not be blamed if after reading these newspapers he comes to the conclusion that war against Russia is probably a matter of months. The Japanese would be fools if they did not notice this almost hysterical attitude.”
This is confirmed by a report in the magazine 'Newsweek, written by Mr. H. Kern, the magazine’s foreign editor, who had just returned from Japan. Mr. Kern states that United States generals in Japan are systematically influencing Japanese militarists in favour of the inevitability and necessity of a war against the Soviet Union. He reports that a large number of Japanese suicide-flyers presented themselves at United States airfields and declared their readiness to take part in a new war against Russia which, they had heard, had already begun. Mr. Kern points out that the Japanese would probably welcome the possibility of a war with the Russians and that the Japanese Army supported by the United States would presumably be able “to seize Asiatic Russia” to the east of Lake Baikal. He added: “The United States’ mastery of the seas would make it possible to land at almost any point, and Japan herself would be safe under the protection of the superior United States air and naval forces. These menacing strategic facts explain why Russia’s absence at the Peace Conference on Japan would never be felt.”
These facts, I may add, explain a lot of other things which must bring a blush of shame to the cheek of any honest person.
Thus, for a considerable time now propaganda for war is being systematically spread in the United States of America. And the basic tendency of this propaganda can be summed up as follows:
1. It uses every means to instil fear of the Soviet Union, as a mighty Power allegedly bent on achieving world domination and preparing an attack on the United States, and makes the most barefaced use of every possible libellous insinuation and provocation against the USSR.
2. It openly advocates that armaments should be strengthened and atomic weapons further improved. Any attempt to restrict, still less prohibit, the use of atomic weapons should be abandoned.
3. It calls, in open meetings, for an immediate attack on the USSR, and attempts to stir up public opinion by provocative and alarming references to the military might of the Soviet Union; at the same time, it emphasizes the need for, taking advantage of the present situation when, as the warmongers believe, the USSR is militarily weak and has not yet completely recovered from the effects of the Second World War. Thus, while it inspires fear of the mighty “white bear” — the Soviet Union — at the same time it urges: “Attack quickly, while this ‘white bear’ is still not very strong, before all its wounds are healed.”
4. It fosters, by every method, a war psychosis among the American people, inspired and encouraged by American militarist and expansionist groups.
This is clear to progressive leaders in the United States, who are doing their best to unmask the war preparations at present being carried on there and to salve the minds of war-intoxicated people.
These progressive United States leaders and a Progressive section of the United States Press try expose the war preparations which are being made in the United States at the instigation of military groups and various reactionary organizations. For instance, Mr. F. Kingdon, the Chairman of the “Progressive Citizens of America”, Wrote on this point in the New York Times that behind all this propaganda campaign are to be found the militaristically minded people who occupy high-ranking posts in the War and Navy Departments; members of the House of Representatives and the Senate, who listen to the calls for war; heads of monopolies and certain representatives of religious groups. The war party, it is said further, hopes that it will be possible to fabricate some incident and to use it as an excuse for dropping atomic bombs.
The American Mercury, in its February issue this year, analysed the plans of the United States army which is preparing for a third world war. The article states: “Industrial preparedness is now the key to all government planning in Washington today against the contingency of a third world war”. Since this is the conclusion of such military authorities as Messrs. Patterson, Royall and other United States army leaders, this article obviously takes on special significance.
It follows quite clearly from the above that the main responsibility for agitating and inciting in favour of a new war devolves on American reactionary circles, intent only on their own selfish interests and ready, for the sake of these interests, to hurl humanity once more into a destructive world war.
But the United States reactionaries are not alone in these efforts. They are supported by their sympathizers in certain other countries, who are busily engaged in knocking together military-political or purely political western, northern or other blocs. In this connexion mention should be made of the speeches of certain British political leaders who, it is true, are not so downright in their declarations as their United States fellow-thinkers ; they use more subtlety, but maintain the same alarmist tone.
You all remember Mr. Churchill’s speech at Fulton, where, speaking of “the general strategic concept,” as he called his basic statements, the former British Prime Minister committed “a dangerous act, designed to sow the seeds of discord, amongst the Allied States and hamper their cooperation”, as Generalissimo Stalin rightly remarked, when he emphasized that “Churchill’s attitude was a war attitude, a call for war against the USSR”.
We all remember that in place of the United Nations as an association of peoples speaking different languages, Mr. Churchill posed the concept of an association of peoples speaking only the English language. In this way he was following the example of Hitler, who took the first step in unleashing the war by “proclaiming a racial theory, and declaring that only people who spoke German constituted a first-class nation” (Stalin). Mr. Churchill asserts that only people who speak English are a first-class nation. We also remember many other points in that speech, in which Mr. Churchill indulged in insinuations and calumny against the Soviet Union.
Churchill’s son echoed his father’s words. He broke the record for warmongering in his speech at Sydney on 3 September. Very few people are interested in the utterances of the Churchill family as such but they serve as an indication of the dirty work which is being done in certain British circles against the cause of peace and in preparation for a new war, whether it be a repetition of Churchill’s notorious campaign against Russia or whether it take some other form.
In this connexion we ought also to mention the fact that the Anglo-American Joint Staff is still functioning in Washington. It is well known that the United Kingdom is represented on this Joint Staff by a British military mission, headed by General Morgan, and the United States by a U S military mission, headed by Admiral Leahy. This Anglo-American Joint Staff, founded to co-ordinate military action against Germany and Japan continues to exist although the war ended two years ago.
I need not enumerate the various aspects of the completely unrestrained and unbridled campaign of slander, and provocation designed to foment war against the Soviet Union, which has been carried on for a long time past in Turkey. I will deal exclusively with Turkey. The reactionary Press in Turkey tries to keep pace with the reactionary United States Press. “Where the horse prances, the crab crawls”, as the Russian proverb says.
The Turkish Press, day in and day out, disseminates vile slander against the Soviet Union, which, it claims, is preparing to invade Turkey (newspaper Aksam), It prophesies provocatively that “the United Nations will try to deal Russia a decisive blow from the coast of the Black Sea” (Demokrasi Iksam); it incites the Turkish nation to prepare for war and, at the same time, vaunts the military might of America, asserting that the United States will absolutely have to fight the Soviet Union.
The notorious Cumhuriyet; in an article by a certain Daver, declares with cynical frankness that war is the only way to compel Moscow to take the right path.” He is echoed in Ulus by the Deputy Atay, the editor-in-chief of this paper, who states that “the time has now come for the United States and the United Kingdom to take more resolute measures.” Mr. Yalcin, the editor of the paper Tanin, who is notorious for his provocative activity, yields nothing to them. In September last he wrote that the time had come “to hang an atomic bomb over the conference table and invite the Russians to negotiate openly.” He also said the Russians should be sent an ultimatum and told that “they would be deluged with atomic bombs if they did not agree to the establishment of a new international order.” The same Mr. Yalcin wrote the other day that the only talk Moscow understood was ultimatum, and he called on the whole world “to unite against Russia.” The ultimatum language of which Yalcin dreams is familiar to us all as the “get tough policy” of the United States. Similar provocative appeals are made by other hireling scribblers, such as Mr. Advyza of the reactionary Turkish paper Ergemeken, the so-called Professor Likhat Erim, several deputies and members of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Majlis, and others.
This provocative claptrap is energetically supported by Greek reactionary papers, more particularly by the Ellinikon Aima, which published an article the other day in which it said : “The Russians should not forget that the chief Russian source of oil in Baku lies, as it were, in a saucer, only 100 kilometres away from the Turkish frontier.”
And all this goes on unpunished before the eyes of the whole world. Such are the machinations of the enemies of peace, who incite to war for the sake of their selfish interests, for war gains, and who bring new sufferings and hardships upon humanity. There is no doubt whatsoever that this campaign for a new war is severely and resolutely condemned by millions of people.
The Soviet Government considers that such a situation cannot commend itself to the conscience of the peoples who bore on their shoulders all the hardships of the Second World War only recently ended, who paid for the war forced upon the peace-loving peoples with their blood, their sufferings and their material losses. Acting on the instructions of the Soviet Government, the delegation of the Soviet Union declares that the Soviet Union considers it urgently necessary that the United Nations should take steps against those who are now carrying on propaganda for a new war, in certain countries, and chiefly in the United States of America.
To this end the Soviet delegation proposes the adoption of the following resolution:
“1. The United Nations condemn the criminal propaganda for a new war, carried on by reactionary circles in a number of countries and, in particular, in the United States of America, Turkey and Greece, by the dissemination of all types of fabrications through the Press, radio, cinema, and public speeches, containing open appeals for aggression against the peace-loving democratic countries;
“2. The United Nations regard the toleration of and — even more so — support of this type of propaganda for a new war, which will inevitably become the third world war, as a violation of the obligations assumed by the Members of the United Nations whose Charter calls upon them “to develop friendly relations among nations based on respect for the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples, and to take other appropriate measures to strengthen universal peace” and not to “endanger international peace and security, and justice. (Article 1, paragraph 2 Article 2, paragraph 3);
“3. The United Nations deem it essential that the Governments of all countries be called upon to prohibit, on pain of criminal penalties, the carrying on of war propaganda in any form, and to take measures with a view to the prevention and suppression of war propaganda as anti-social activity endangering the vital interests and wellbeing of the peace-loving nations;
“4. The United Nations affirm the necessity for the speediest implementation of the decision taken by the General Assembly on 14 December 1946 on the reduction of armaments, and the decision of the General Assembly of 24 January 1946 concerning the exclusion from national armaments of the atomic weapon and all other main types of armaments designed for mass destruction and considers that the implementation of these decisions is in the interests of all peace-loving nations and" would constitute a most powerful blow at propaganda and the inciters of a new war.”
Generalissimo Stalin, in his message of greeting on the occasion of the 800th anniversary of the founding of Moscow referred to the fact that Moscow was the champion in the struggle for lasting peace and friendship between the nations and against the instigators of a new war. These words by the great leader of the Soviet peoples met with a profound response in the hearts of all Soviet citizens and, we believe, in the hearts of all simple, honest and progressive people throughout the entire world. The Soviet nation will spare no pains to see that this great task is successfully accomplished.